


What I'm Left With

by Akaicchi



Series: Requests and Commissions [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Angst, Feelings Realization, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Prison Visit, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 15:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaicchi/pseuds/Akaicchi
Summary: Kanji tries to sort his feelings with a prison visit to Adachi.Kanji's viewpoint. One-sided.





	What I'm Left With

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagatsuAdachii](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=MagatsuAdachii).



> A birthday gift for a Tumblr friend, MagatsuAdachii. :D  
> I'd love to do something else with this. At some point... It feels like a good resolution, but also like I NEED to write more.

I always liked Adachi.

_The man seemed so charming and non-threatening. Like he just wanted to be your friend._

_Adachi-san made an impression on me, for sure. I always felt like the dumb one, but he treated me differently. Like I had good ideas, or like it was cool that I was strong. I was shocked when it turned out that he was the killer all along._

_I don’t think…_

_I don’t think that I was able to get closure, really._

_And that’s how I ended up in this car. With Ojisan. Going to Tokyo. To see Adachi-san._

“Do you even know what you’re going to say to him?” Dojima suspiciously asks me.

“Uhh, no?” I reply without thinking.

“Damn it, kid!! Why’d I even bring you along,” he moans.

“I just—” I sigh. “I told ‘im I’d come back. None of the others ever wanna go, but I’m keeping that promise.”

Dojima exhales loudly. “That’s... Good of you.”

“Damn straight,” I mutter, looking out the window. “I don’t go back on my word.”

 _What am I even going to say to him, though?_ I watch the scenery pass us by as we get closer and closer to the prison.

_—Prison. Adachi-san is in prison. Cause he’s a bad person._

I sigh aloud and Dojima gives me a look. He turns the radio up a little, as if to discourage talking.

_Things have always been so black and white to me. But this situation is something I can’t fit neatly into one of those boxes. I can’t see him being as terrible as he is, but I also can’t act like he’s still the same guy I thought he was._

Looking down at my feet, I sigh again. _This sucks. I really..._

When I sigh for the third time, Dojima grumbles and turns the music down. “What is it, Kanji?” he gruffly questions.

“Nothin’,” I reply, not looking at him.

“Are you going to be like this the whole day?” he asks, pulling out a cigarette.

“Are you gonna smoke when I can’t escape it?” I spit back.

Dojima sighs and lights up his cigarette with the lighter I know was Adachi’s. I stare at it curiously and try to take it away from him. Dojima frowns, but lets me see it.

“You know it was his?” he questions.

I nod. “Yeah.”

“You gonna ask me why I kept it?” Dojima growls, his hands tightening on the wheel.

“Nope,” I reply, already having an idea.

“Good.”

We don’t say anything more until we reach the prison. Dojima instructs me to leave everything in the car, what the procedures for entry are, and so on. Before I know it, we’re in a little cubicle, the two of us and Adachi facing each other. A glass wall in between.

“Sit far enough away that you can’t hear us, and I’ll give you the same courtesy,” Dojima instructs me.

I nod and pull a chair away from the window. I rest my arms on my legs and watch Dojima speak animatedly to Adachi, on different sides of the divider.

When they’re finally done, Dojima and I trade places. Adachi gives me one of his old, silly grins, but it looks more tired than it used to. Like he’s aged a ton in the past few months.

“Well, well, well~” the man sneers from behind the glass. “Look who came back, after all!”

“‘Said I would,” I quietly reply.

“Couldn’t get enough of me!” he laughs, but it feels forced. It’s not like the laughs he used to give us when we’d see him hanging around town. It’s not as easy, as carefree.

I lean back in the chair and fold my arms, waiting for him to be serious. Adachi nervously chuckles and then sighs.“ _You’re_ gonna act like it’s all different, too?”

I let the words sit between us for a minute. _It IS all different. You’re always behind bars or a divider or whatever._

_It feels different that I can’t get in your face and rag on you—Not that I would want to when you look so beaten-down, anyways. But it’s just NOT the same._

Adachi fidgets, squirming in his chair. “The only trick I’ve got left it to disappear,” he mumbles.

“You said you wouldn’t,” I reply.

“Oh, he _speaks_!” Adachi jeers, sitting up straighter and acting like he just wants to banter like we used to.

 _But we can’t just go back to that._ I stay leaning back in my chair, slightly disengaged. _I want him to take this seriously._

“What do you want from me?” I finally voice the thought aloud. “You asked me to come back.”

Adachi shrugs. “I wanted to see you again—And _hey_! You seemed like the weak link, the most likely to return if I’d asked~”

“So that’s it?” I coolly reply. “You were just yanking me around?”

Waving his arms around like he doesn’t even know, Adachi grins disarmingly. “Why’d you come here?” he asks me in return.

I feel myself frowning, my eyebrows drawing together as I try to puzzle it out. _Why DID I come here? Why did I take this long-ass drive with silent Ojisan just to see the guy who befriended me at the same time he killed people I knew?_

I bite my lip. _There’s no good reason for this—For any of this._

“You wanted me to,” I start, but my voice dies in my throat.

“Leave,” Adachi finishes with a sigh. “Naah, that would be even more boring. Come back again, and maybe I’ll show you a good trick.”

“What ‘trick’?” I shake my head.

Adachi glowers—The first real expression he’s shown to me. “Don’t know. Just—”

“Trying to get me to come back?” I return with a laugh. It simply slips out.

He looks up at me sharply, eyes flaring for a second, and I can see the him who did those awful things. I unconsciously sit up straighter, as if a threat it staring me down.

“ _Just_ —” he stops himself, unable to shake the words free. His eyebrows crease and Adachi slumps back in his chair. “Fine!” he jabs at me with his words. “Come back.”

“You got it,” I promise with a nod. I lean forward and knock on the glass. “Bye, Aadchi-san.”

“Bye Kanji,” he grudgingly replies.

When Adachi says he’s finished, a guard comes to take him away.

As we walk from the visitor area to the car, Dojima fixes me with a curious look. He studies me intently for an uncomfortable minute.

“You like him, don’t you?” Dojima asks me with a funny expression on his face.

“Wh-what?” I ask, feeling myself turn red. “Why would you—”

He slaps my back to keep us moving. “I can tell. Don’t do it,” is all he says. Then he stuffs his hands in his pockets and doesn’t say anything else.

In the parking lot, he pulls out the lighter and his cigarettes again, flicking the flame on and inhaling deeply. I watch him smoke for a few seconds before walking ahead to the car.

_I’m not ready to admit it to myself yet._

_So he’s wrong. I don’t like him and never did._

Dojima unlocks the car and we silently get inside. “You good?” he questions.

“Yeah,” I reply, voice firm.

“You gonna stop coming here?”

“No.”

Dojima sighs and turns over the motor. We start towards home, both probably keeping our thoughts pushed away, somewhere they can’t escape from until next time.


End file.
